Can you believe it took 24 hours of constant travel to go 600 odd km's? mind you these bus drivers go down every dusty back street in every town throwing more net bags of live chickens on to the roof of the bus, I'm sure a few of the poor beasties must die before they reach their destination.
My last post was ten days ago, I didn't realise it would be so long, from Attapu I went back to Paksie and then on down to Don Det and the 4000 Islands, it is very laid back down there and they are still only on generator electricity so I didn't have the opportunity to fire up the computer really.
OK how to squeeze the last ten days into a single post.
Here on the Island every rice farmer has realised he can supplement his income by knocking up a couple of bungalows along the edge of his property next to the river, there are some quite nice ones and some getting a bit ratty ones, mine was merrily being munched out from around me by termites, but the bungalow owner didn't seem to mind too much when I told him about it. Living here though is like living on a farm, pigs, chickens, morning roosters and all.
Sitting on the balcony in my hammock was great, reading books from the collection in the restaurant and watching the world drift on by down the Mekong, my bungalow was opposite a large wat and boat loads of monks would occasionally head one or other way up the river with spare saffron robes wound like turbans to keep the sun off, there was a regular flow of people in conical bamboo hats paddling up and down, hiring a boat in the morning or evening to wander aimlessly about the islands and watching the fisher folk became a favourite hobby.
My bungalow is on sunrise, as the heat in the afternoon is pretty intense and luckily I have found a bar on sunset beach which makes potent "Lao lao" Mojitos for drinking while watching the sunset.
The sunsets may be great, but you should see the moonrise, it's fantastic, glowing bright cerise which fades to pink as it rises higher, I don't think I have ever seen anything like it!
Irrawaddy river dolphins, some of the rarest creatures on earth live just a few kilometers south of the bungalow I stayed in, we caught a boat out to visit them, they appeared to be having a fairly chilled out morning. it's weird though, despite knowing this, locals drop plastic bags into the river as if it were a garbage disposal unit and foreigners (who should know better) get drunk ad throw their cigarette butts in too.
The water here is a little startling some of it! my favourite is the one that proclaims "disinfection by uv rays", great so it is scooped out of a muddy puddle after it has sat in the sun all day?
Went and saw the widest waterfall in Sth east asia, the waterfalls are all a little unimpressive at this time of year, but I can imagine this one is really impressive in rainy season.
At the market my bus stopped at on the way back up here to vientiane I saw somebody actually buy a rat on a stick! (maybe it was a mouse), I even took a photo, they also had little plastic bags seething with live bugs, maybe thats our problem in the west we don't buy packets of fresh bugs and take them home to our kitchens we spend all our time in misguided attempts to get rid of them. Just imagine next time your at the cinema a packet of freshly roasted mixed bugs instead of popcorn, mmmmm.
Did I mention how many bloody French tourists are here? they love to ask intellectual questions like "In my country this is called a baguette, what do you call it" to which the waitress (remarkably restrained I thought) merely replied "a baguette" no mention of the fact that if it hadn't been for you colonising bastards they wouldn't be any bloody baguettes.
Better go pick up my passport.
Love Nikki Jayne
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Attapu 13/03/06
Ok, well here not only is there no wifi, but there is no internet access, so you will be waiting a while for these posts.
After yet another bum numbing bus ride I find myself in sleepy little Attapu, they don't get many "falangs" here, I'm getting stared at a great deal, I find the kids all wave and practice their english (which is exceptionally limited) while the parents just stare until you say hello, then they have great big wide smiles, and there are lots of little girls smoking great big bongs! In fact it seems more women then men smoke around here. (what exactly they are smoking I'm not sure mind you, perhaps those opium dens from Vang Vieng have migrated a long way south).
It is beautiful here, I went down to the river and played frisbee with a band of kids for several hours, we all ended up swimming about in the river I managed to not drown any of them, it's amazing how many small children can sit on you before you sink! I succeeded eventually escaping up to the restaurant above the banks of the river to watch the sunset, it was one of those great pink ones with the clouds in just the right place to make the sky light up, the clouds themselves wore gold halos, embarassingly perfect really.
N.J.
Next day
The market here is really cool, not a souvenir in sight, it's all food, domestic appliances, and clothing, for the first time I have had trouble finding baguettes. I am kind of over rice and the fish soup I had for dinner, I can live without ever having to sit through again.
I hired a motorbike today and wandered out to Pa-am, which apparently is one of the most bombed areas of the "Ho chi min trail". there is lots of new and interesting uses that folks around here have put old bomb casings and other war junk to, there is even an old surface to air missile still in it's launcher in one place. Many of the villages here are tribal and the people can't read so my already limited communication avenues have become further reduced. From there I went on to "Dong Ampham" nature reserve where there are still lots of wild tigers and UXO so I didn't venture too far off the track, saw lots of birds and believe it or not actually caught a glimpse of a tiger, (that was close enough for me!).
Got back to Attapu in time to watch the sunset from my favourite restaurant, the kids here are amazingly athletic, they can do a somersault back flip from a still standing position in waist deep water, there is no problem with childhood obesity here! The restaurant decided to have karaoke tonight, not in Lao/Thai, not in English but in French, oh my god! thankfully no-one asked me to sing (it was pretty funny actually), Not a bad way to spend my birthday. There was some mad vietnamese bloke who wanted to marry me so I ended up showing him the photo of Glen and his Dad from which he assumed Glen was my baby and his Dad my Husband, I'm becoming extremely glad I carry that photo around with me!
You know your becoming acclimatised when it becomes quite normal to see Women driving their motorbikes with one hand and using the other to hold an umbrella, when choosing an ice cream flavour between the one with kidney beans and the one with sweet corn in it does not even phase you, when kids in wooly hats in 30 degree heat seems reasonable.
There seems to be as many Vietnamese as Lao people around here, weirdly they have morning aerobics on tv the same as in many western countries, but where we have blonde women barely contained by their strips of lycra, they have young girls, I assume this is in order to desexualise it, somehow it makes me feel exactly the opposite and think of how much paedophiles would enjoy this kind of programming.
N.J.
After yet another bum numbing bus ride I find myself in sleepy little Attapu, they don't get many "falangs" here, I'm getting stared at a great deal, I find the kids all wave and practice their english (which is exceptionally limited) while the parents just stare until you say hello, then they have great big wide smiles, and there are lots of little girls smoking great big bongs! In fact it seems more women then men smoke around here. (what exactly they are smoking I'm not sure mind you, perhaps those opium dens from Vang Vieng have migrated a long way south).
It is beautiful here, I went down to the river and played frisbee with a band of kids for several hours, we all ended up swimming about in the river I managed to not drown any of them, it's amazing how many small children can sit on you before you sink! I succeeded eventually escaping up to the restaurant above the banks of the river to watch the sunset, it was one of those great pink ones with the clouds in just the right place to make the sky light up, the clouds themselves wore gold halos, embarassingly perfect really.
N.J.
Next day
The market here is really cool, not a souvenir in sight, it's all food, domestic appliances, and clothing, for the first time I have had trouble finding baguettes. I am kind of over rice and the fish soup I had for dinner, I can live without ever having to sit through again.
I hired a motorbike today and wandered out to Pa-am, which apparently is one of the most bombed areas of the "Ho chi min trail". there is lots of new and interesting uses that folks around here have put old bomb casings and other war junk to, there is even an old surface to air missile still in it's launcher in one place. Many of the villages here are tribal and the people can't read so my already limited communication avenues have become further reduced. From there I went on to "Dong Ampham" nature reserve where there are still lots of wild tigers and UXO so I didn't venture too far off the track, saw lots of birds and believe it or not actually caught a glimpse of a tiger, (that was close enough for me!).
Got back to Attapu in time to watch the sunset from my favourite restaurant, the kids here are amazingly athletic, they can do a somersault back flip from a still standing position in waist deep water, there is no problem with childhood obesity here! The restaurant decided to have karaoke tonight, not in Lao/Thai, not in English but in French, oh my god! thankfully no-one asked me to sing (it was pretty funny actually), Not a bad way to spend my birthday. There was some mad vietnamese bloke who wanted to marry me so I ended up showing him the photo of Glen and his Dad from which he assumed Glen was my baby and his Dad my Husband, I'm becoming extremely glad I carry that photo around with me!
You know your becoming acclimatised when it becomes quite normal to see Women driving their motorbikes with one hand and using the other to hold an umbrella, when choosing an ice cream flavour between the one with kidney beans and the one with sweet corn in it does not even phase you, when kids in wooly hats in 30 degree heat seems reasonable.
There seems to be as many Vietnamese as Lao people around here, weirdly they have morning aerobics on tv the same as in many western countries, but where we have blonde women barely contained by their strips of lycra, they have young girls, I assume this is in order to desexualise it, somehow it makes me feel exactly the opposite and think of how much paedophiles would enjoy this kind of programming.
N.J.
Paksie 11/03/06
I hate long bus journeys! When the VIP bus turned up (an hour and a half late) it looked a hell of a lot like a jumbo tuk tuk, in fact so like, that it was indeed a jumbo tuk tuk, we cruised around Vientienne till they had packed 14 of us foreigners (plus luggage) into the mobile shoebox. I had the best seat on the machine, right behind the cab where the engine is, it was roaringly hot!
Thank god it wasn't that far to the terminal and indeed there awaited the living cliche that is the VIP tourist bus, it had a tacky painting of Ariel (the little mermaid) down the side and I squeezed in next to the guy who was seated next to me, there is no arm rest between the seats which makes them a little too intimate if you are not traveling together for my tastes, but none the less we got underway. I believe there was a toilet on the bus and I even looked for it at one point, to no avail. The downstairs area of the bus has a VIP lounge area, where in theory people can sit about, but in Asia this space in reality is packed with people and luggage as well.
The onboard entertainment was ghastly, you know that so bad it cycles right round to being "enterpainment", a hideous collision of lack of talent and over exposure, tearing my eyes away was almost impossible. there was the girl in the sequined mini with the bad background dancers, the two guys who semi-sang semi-spoke there duet in front of obviously (badly synced and unrealistic) digitally generated backdrops, their dearth of singing talent was only eclipsed by the complete absence of anything remotely resembling rhythm in their tortured gyrations. Third was this girl whose video told the story of how she fancied this bloke, secretly took his picture (on her phone) then photoshopped them into a picture together, then of course she walks into him falls over and drops the book with the photo which he then sees, instead of the normal reaction you or I would have "this obsessive weirdo I didn't know existed is stalking me", they of course get together ???!? The blessing was that all though it was karaoke, no-one (thank god) attempted to sing along, visions of Cliff Richard's summer holiday swim dizzyingly in my head as I pray for it to stop.
Luckily it did stop and then they put on the Peter Jackson version of "King Kong" but it was at least half way through and after half an hour in which the thing kept breaking up and pixelating horribly we returned to (the same three) karaoke songs, arrrgh, luckily the bus paused long enough for me to whip out my contact lenses, put in my ipod earphones and attempt to sleep. Soon after they turned the screen off and we all got some sleep only to be awoken in the morning by, yes you guessed it the same three karaoke numbers. I was really, really glad I had packed my warm jacket, those air-con busses are freezing!
On arriving in Paksie I wandered vaguely away from the bus station till I finally found a cafe, as I was drinking my banana lassi I struck up a conversation with the two guys sitting opposite me (they had broad kiwi accents). Richard and Brian, a father and son team who were on a cycling trip from Vietnam (where Richard worked for the red cross), they invited me to join there trip to "wat phou champasak" the local Angkor era ruin, they had hired a car for the day, so me (and all my stuff) piled into the car and off we went.
The road at one point crosses a river, and the Lao version of a car ferry has to be seen to be really appreciated I think. All of the boats here look like the hollowed trunks of trees, long, thin and with a tendency to roll in the water, to make a car ferry they simply lash a raft like platform on top of three of these little boats and attach a long tail motor. It was fun, the ruin is in an amazing location with a limestone cliff behind it and a really cool staircase with flowering frangipani trees arching up to create a cool canopy over the top, the ruin itself isn't up to much (especially if you have been to Siem reap) but it was an unexpected free bonus!
When I got back I eventually managed to find a guest house and have the cutest tiny lizard in it, although he seems to have not realised I am a particularly large animal and crawling on me is probably not in his best interests, in fact he just crawled into my t.shirt and is tickling my armpit, (tee hee).
Thank god it wasn't that far to the terminal and indeed there awaited the living cliche that is the VIP tourist bus, it had a tacky painting of Ariel (the little mermaid) down the side and I squeezed in next to the guy who was seated next to me, there is no arm rest between the seats which makes them a little too intimate if you are not traveling together for my tastes, but none the less we got underway. I believe there was a toilet on the bus and I even looked for it at one point, to no avail. The downstairs area of the bus has a VIP lounge area, where in theory people can sit about, but in Asia this space in reality is packed with people and luggage as well.
The onboard entertainment was ghastly, you know that so bad it cycles right round to being "enterpainment", a hideous collision of lack of talent and over exposure, tearing my eyes away was almost impossible. there was the girl in the sequined mini with the bad background dancers, the two guys who semi-sang semi-spoke there duet in front of obviously (badly synced and unrealistic) digitally generated backdrops, their dearth of singing talent was only eclipsed by the complete absence of anything remotely resembling rhythm in their tortured gyrations. Third was this girl whose video told the story of how she fancied this bloke, secretly took his picture (on her phone) then photoshopped them into a picture together, then of course she walks into him falls over and drops the book with the photo which he then sees, instead of the normal reaction you or I would have "this obsessive weirdo I didn't know existed is stalking me", they of course get together ???!? The blessing was that all though it was karaoke, no-one (thank god) attempted to sing along, visions of Cliff Richard's summer holiday swim dizzyingly in my head as I pray for it to stop.
Luckily it did stop and then they put on the Peter Jackson version of "King Kong" but it was at least half way through and after half an hour in which the thing kept breaking up and pixelating horribly we returned to (the same three) karaoke songs, arrrgh, luckily the bus paused long enough for me to whip out my contact lenses, put in my ipod earphones and attempt to sleep. Soon after they turned the screen off and we all got some sleep only to be awoken in the morning by, yes you guessed it the same three karaoke numbers. I was really, really glad I had packed my warm jacket, those air-con busses are freezing!
On arriving in Paksie I wandered vaguely away from the bus station till I finally found a cafe, as I was drinking my banana lassi I struck up a conversation with the two guys sitting opposite me (they had broad kiwi accents). Richard and Brian, a father and son team who were on a cycling trip from Vietnam (where Richard worked for the red cross), they invited me to join there trip to "wat phou champasak" the local Angkor era ruin, they had hired a car for the day, so me (and all my stuff) piled into the car and off we went.
The road at one point crosses a river, and the Lao version of a car ferry has to be seen to be really appreciated I think. All of the boats here look like the hollowed trunks of trees, long, thin and with a tendency to roll in the water, to make a car ferry they simply lash a raft like platform on top of three of these little boats and attach a long tail motor. It was fun, the ruin is in an amazing location with a limestone cliff behind it and a really cool staircase with flowering frangipani trees arching up to create a cool canopy over the top, the ruin itself isn't up to much (especially if you have been to Siem reap) but it was an unexpected free bonus!
When I got back I eventually managed to find a guest house and have the cutest tiny lizard in it, although he seems to have not realised I am a particularly large animal and crawling on me is probably not in his best interests, in fact he just crawled into my t.shirt and is tickling my armpit, (tee hee).
Vientienne 07/03/06
This is a surprisingly small city, after arriving I managed to walk twice as far as I thought I had and wondered why I couldn't find my guest house, anyway I eventually found the place and went for a walk along the Mekong. The river is so low at the moment I reckon you could wade to Thailand, even some one as dodgy a swimmer as I could doggy paddle my way across, surely some traveller with one too many "beer Lao" (reputedly the best beer in Sth East Asia) inside them has attempted this.
Beer Lao may well be the best beer in Sth East Asia it is not completely vile, I will never be a beer drinker but it's a hell of a lot better than the stuff in Thailand.
Ahh yes, that's right I was walking along the banks of the Mekong. "Don Chan" the Island in the mekong is actually connected by a land bridge and has a couple of soccer fields set up on it's arid surface, you can also get pony rides (oh Daddy, buy me a pony), young people flock down here as the sunsets, it's Manners mall on a Friday night, every night of their young lives.
There are food stalls all the way along the river, it's great to sit and watch the sunset over Thailand as you chow down, I had Lap fish and a fresh coconut to drink, the Fish was delicious, a little spicy (and that's without chewing on the two whole chillies it came with) but really good and it comes with a fresh salad and rice. of course as soon as the sunsets it is open season for bugs, there was a minor plague but hey I was finished anyway.
Tomorrow is visa day, stay tuned. Well actually it was "International women's day" so no visa! What is it with me and visas, we seem to have a natural antipathy toward one another, perhaps it is because I don't believe in their validity. This whole thing with borders and who should and shouldn't be allowed into each others country is all a load of socially constructed bullshit in my opinion. But hey no-one's asking me so tomorrow is visa day!
Today I went and visited a bunch of temples and the museum which was full of references to the "American Imperialists" (tee hee), Lao is a country full of contradictions. It's ok for women to fight in the glorious revolution and even a number of them received medals for their efforts but none seemed to make it into parliament when it was formed. The national dress for women is a long skirt and basically a scarf wrapped around the breasts and another scarf worn like a beauty pageant sash, and yet at the public baths it states women need to swim covered at least from shoulder to knee?
Down on the banks of the Mekong each day is public aerobics, you can stand and watch people exercise! It's a bit of a public spectacle, of course it is swelteringly hot and the music is fantastically awful (the venga boys no less), about six people on a concrete stage the rest on the floor below, weird!
Beer Lao may well be the best beer in Sth East Asia it is not completely vile, I will never be a beer drinker but it's a hell of a lot better than the stuff in Thailand.
Ahh yes, that's right I was walking along the banks of the Mekong. "Don Chan" the Island in the mekong is actually connected by a land bridge and has a couple of soccer fields set up on it's arid surface, you can also get pony rides (oh Daddy, buy me a pony), young people flock down here as the sunsets, it's Manners mall on a Friday night, every night of their young lives.
There are food stalls all the way along the river, it's great to sit and watch the sunset over Thailand as you chow down, I had Lap fish and a fresh coconut to drink, the Fish was delicious, a little spicy (and that's without chewing on the two whole chillies it came with) but really good and it comes with a fresh salad and rice. of course as soon as the sunsets it is open season for bugs, there was a minor plague but hey I was finished anyway.
Tomorrow is visa day, stay tuned. Well actually it was "International women's day" so no visa! What is it with me and visas, we seem to have a natural antipathy toward one another, perhaps it is because I don't believe in their validity. This whole thing with borders and who should and shouldn't be allowed into each others country is all a load of socially constructed bullshit in my opinion. But hey no-one's asking me so tomorrow is visa day!
Today I went and visited a bunch of temples and the museum which was full of references to the "American Imperialists" (tee hee), Lao is a country full of contradictions. It's ok for women to fight in the glorious revolution and even a number of them received medals for their efforts but none seemed to make it into parliament when it was formed. The national dress for women is a long skirt and basically a scarf wrapped around the breasts and another scarf worn like a beauty pageant sash, and yet at the public baths it states women need to swim covered at least from shoulder to knee?
Down on the banks of the Mekong each day is public aerobics, you can stand and watch people exercise! It's a bit of a public spectacle, of course it is swelteringly hot and the music is fantastically awful (the venga boys no less), about six people on a concrete stage the rest on the floor below, weird!
Vang Vieng 06/03/06
Having an absolute ball here in Vang Vieng, spelunking, white water rafting, kayaking, it all happens here, complete with a test match on the telly in my favourite Indian restaurant, India vs England. The local kids love playing in the river out the front of my bungalow, unfortunately not quite close enough to photograph but fortunately close enough to enjoy.
I have not yet killed myself while bouncing off rocks in a rubber tube traveling at stupid speeds down rapids, (I can now sympathise with those balls in pinball machines), and all this with the advantage of having your bum emersed in chilly water the entire time! Capsizing kayaks has become a specialty. For some obscure reason that has yet to become apparent to me, no-one will leave you in charge of a kayak till you have proved that you can both spin the thing and flip it. I have only superficial wounds after slipping down the sides of several caves, the water in said caves is often freezing, apparently some tourists like to swim in it?!? I was under the obviously false impression that the earths core was warm! The caves often have Buddah statues in them and stalagmites and tites that someone with an overactive imagination once upon a time thought looked like an elephant or a monkey or perhaps a rabbit in the moon.
It's amazing how much the inside of a cave is just how I imagine the surface of the moon to be, except of course that it tends to be damp and drippy in parts and of course the surface of the moon is apparently dry (if it wasn't it would be like the surface of the earth and not like a cave floor at all, hmmm, perhaps I should give up while I am ahead on this one.).
I was at this cave the other day, most of the caves here are in the sides of cliffs but this one was in a kind of free standing rock and when I walked around the rock it had all these groovy little small caves (not mentioned in the guide books) some had buddah images, and others had general detritus of faith, incense stick bases and melted wax from candles, etc, very cool indeed. Now if this was in my home town the detritus would probably be empty beer bottles (possibly broken) and used condoms. (Perhaps because the river here is so like the Hutt, this random thought occured to me).
The weather has really heated up today, it has been quite chilly up till now in Lao, but today was pretty hot, it's amazing how the temperature drops as soon as that sun hides behind the great karst out crops that make the odd mountain silhouettes behind my bungalow.
The dogs in Lao are all surprisingly fit and healthy and remarkably mange free compared with the dogs in Thailand, I guess unwanted puppies are disposed of rather than left to roam and fend for themselves. Mind you there was this one particular dog outside a bank in Lumphini (where we were staying in Thailand) who was so fat, he just slept all day and all night at the top of the stairs of the bank, occasionally he would lumber down to street level to relieve himself, (though the effort of lifting his leg to pee would often prove too much like hard work half way through) food was delivered to him there on the stairs and I can only hope that this is not the banks idea of a security dog.
There is a herd of marauding water buffalo who like to wander past my bungalow a couple of times a day which would all be terribly rustic and wonderfully authentic (other expressions of touristic and cultural snobbery may be substituted here if you don't like those I have chosen) if they didn't piss me off so much by crapping around my bungalow making my late night trips to the bathroom an obstacle course, I wonder if they would respond to soda bottles full of water strategically parked around the place, I could teach the people of Lao how to make their "yards" appear more like suburban lawns across the western world.
Did I mention that Lao is positively adrift with butterflies and dragonflies, there seem to be clouds of them continually floating up out of paddy fields drifting languidly past just to find a new resting place a foot or so further on. It's fantastic they are so bright and colourful.
While on the subject of wildlife my bungalow has a pet lizard, and I don't mean a little gecko, it's quite a large lizard, I rather like this it keeps the mosquito level low, but I worry for the life of the cricket who has rather recklessly just wandered in!
Anyway I'm going to have a nap in my hammock, catch y'all on the flip side.
N.J.
I have not yet killed myself while bouncing off rocks in a rubber tube traveling at stupid speeds down rapids, (I can now sympathise with those balls in pinball machines), and all this with the advantage of having your bum emersed in chilly water the entire time! Capsizing kayaks has become a specialty. For some obscure reason that has yet to become apparent to me, no-one will leave you in charge of a kayak till you have proved that you can both spin the thing and flip it. I have only superficial wounds after slipping down the sides of several caves, the water in said caves is often freezing, apparently some tourists like to swim in it?!? I was under the obviously false impression that the earths core was warm! The caves often have Buddah statues in them and stalagmites and tites that someone with an overactive imagination once upon a time thought looked like an elephant or a monkey or perhaps a rabbit in the moon.
It's amazing how much the inside of a cave is just how I imagine the surface of the moon to be, except of course that it tends to be damp and drippy in parts and of course the surface of the moon is apparently dry (if it wasn't it would be like the surface of the earth and not like a cave floor at all, hmmm, perhaps I should give up while I am ahead on this one.).
I was at this cave the other day, most of the caves here are in the sides of cliffs but this one was in a kind of free standing rock and when I walked around the rock it had all these groovy little small caves (not mentioned in the guide books) some had buddah images, and others had general detritus of faith, incense stick bases and melted wax from candles, etc, very cool indeed. Now if this was in my home town the detritus would probably be empty beer bottles (possibly broken) and used condoms. (Perhaps because the river here is so like the Hutt, this random thought occured to me).
The weather has really heated up today, it has been quite chilly up till now in Lao, but today was pretty hot, it's amazing how the temperature drops as soon as that sun hides behind the great karst out crops that make the odd mountain silhouettes behind my bungalow.
The dogs in Lao are all surprisingly fit and healthy and remarkably mange free compared with the dogs in Thailand, I guess unwanted puppies are disposed of rather than left to roam and fend for themselves. Mind you there was this one particular dog outside a bank in Lumphini (where we were staying in Thailand) who was so fat, he just slept all day and all night at the top of the stairs of the bank, occasionally he would lumber down to street level to relieve himself, (though the effort of lifting his leg to pee would often prove too much like hard work half way through) food was delivered to him there on the stairs and I can only hope that this is not the banks idea of a security dog.
There is a herd of marauding water buffalo who like to wander past my bungalow a couple of times a day which would all be terribly rustic and wonderfully authentic (other expressions of touristic and cultural snobbery may be substituted here if you don't like those I have chosen) if they didn't piss me off so much by crapping around my bungalow making my late night trips to the bathroom an obstacle course, I wonder if they would respond to soda bottles full of water strategically parked around the place, I could teach the people of Lao how to make their "yards" appear more like suburban lawns across the western world.
Did I mention that Lao is positively adrift with butterflies and dragonflies, there seem to be clouds of them continually floating up out of paddy fields drifting languidly past just to find a new resting place a foot or so further on. It's fantastic they are so bright and colourful.
While on the subject of wildlife my bungalow has a pet lizard, and I don't mean a little gecko, it's quite a large lizard, I rather like this it keeps the mosquito level low, but I worry for the life of the cricket who has rather recklessly just wandered in!
Anyway I'm going to have a nap in my hammock, catch y'all on the flip side.
N.J.
Vang Vieng 02/03/06
Pa Ouk caves were interesting, I can't imagine why they put so many Buddhas in these caves, unless it was to protect them from something, or someone. It was a beautiful trip on the boat which I really enjoyed more than the caves. So peaceful and picturesque.
I caught the bus this morning to Vang Vieng and again their was a chap with an AK 47 on board keeping harm from us, or us from harm or some such theory. Hardly had the bus been on the road half an hour than the bus conductor was handing out little rose tinted barf bags. I wonder what archaeologists in the future will make of this society which preserves bodily wastes so lovingly (in non-biodegradable plastic to enhance longevity) sprinkled along major transportation routes. Not to mention a society that so reveres the canine as to preserve it's fecal matter with similar scrupulousness In densely populated cities across the globe.
There is quite a distinct difference between the architecture, housing materials and clothing styles of the people up North and those down here in central Lao. But wow you should see the tourists in this town, It could be the new Bali or Goa. I must take photo's of the creatures in their natural habitat, lounging about on matress' watching television, drinking whisky. Tomorrow there is a trance party on I don't know if the opium dens mentioned in the guide book are responsible for this behaviour but I shall endeavour to find out, stay tuned. In fact generally Lao is completely over run with travelers. I realised that the global gypsy has become something more than a phenomenon, it has become an inverse cargo cult and ironically becoming a tourist attraction in and of ourselves.
The entire city of Vang Vieng is undergoing simultaneous renovation, instead of digging up and resealing one street at a time. In true communist fashion they have dug up every street in town and are in the process of rebuilding all the streets, so all the good citizens are inconvenienced equally (for twice as long). The dust is out of control, twice a day a huge water tanker rolls through town spraying the streets so for a few hours you can wander through mud instead of dust, personally I'm not sure this is better, just vexation of a different stripe.
It's funny how when I see a newspaper in these news poor environments I can't wait to read it, there is nothing more heart warming than seeing a story from ones homeland. Yes there was a story from New Zealand (I think it is an old story too, I seem to remember my sister telling me this story a year ago). All over the world New Zealanders are now renowned for being the country where sad, fat, lazy blokes can win Russian brides if they drink enough vodka, hmmm.
The other news item I thought worthy of note was the one from India, a woman and her two sons kidnapped an 8 yr old boy and killed him cutting off his ears and nose apparently in order to cure themselves of their nightmares!!! And they thought they were having nightmares before they took part in a ceremony of mutilation and murder, one can only wonder if they are sleeping peacefully now?
I caught the bus this morning to Vang Vieng and again their was a chap with an AK 47 on board keeping harm from us, or us from harm or some such theory. Hardly had the bus been on the road half an hour than the bus conductor was handing out little rose tinted barf bags. I wonder what archaeologists in the future will make of this society which preserves bodily wastes so lovingly (in non-biodegradable plastic to enhance longevity) sprinkled along major transportation routes. Not to mention a society that so reveres the canine as to preserve it's fecal matter with similar scrupulousness In densely populated cities across the globe.
There is quite a distinct difference between the architecture, housing materials and clothing styles of the people up North and those down here in central Lao. But wow you should see the tourists in this town, It could be the new Bali or Goa. I must take photo's of the creatures in their natural habitat, lounging about on matress' watching television, drinking whisky. Tomorrow there is a trance party on I don't know if the opium dens mentioned in the guide book are responsible for this behaviour but I shall endeavour to find out, stay tuned. In fact generally Lao is completely over run with travelers. I realised that the global gypsy has become something more than a phenomenon, it has become an inverse cargo cult and ironically becoming a tourist attraction in and of ourselves.
The entire city of Vang Vieng is undergoing simultaneous renovation, instead of digging up and resealing one street at a time. In true communist fashion they have dug up every street in town and are in the process of rebuilding all the streets, so all the good citizens are inconvenienced equally (for twice as long). The dust is out of control, twice a day a huge water tanker rolls through town spraying the streets so for a few hours you can wander through mud instead of dust, personally I'm not sure this is better, just vexation of a different stripe.
It's funny how when I see a newspaper in these news poor environments I can't wait to read it, there is nothing more heart warming than seeing a story from ones homeland. Yes there was a story from New Zealand (I think it is an old story too, I seem to remember my sister telling me this story a year ago). All over the world New Zealanders are now renowned for being the country where sad, fat, lazy blokes can win Russian brides if they drink enough vodka, hmmm.
The other news item I thought worthy of note was the one from India, a woman and her two sons kidnapped an 8 yr old boy and killed him cutting off his ears and nose apparently in order to cure themselves of their nightmares!!! And they thought they were having nightmares before they took part in a ceremony of mutilation and murder, one can only wonder if they are sleeping peacefully now?
Luang Prabang 28/02/06
The last few days have been crazy, and this will probably not get posted for a few weeks as I have a strong suspicion that wifi hasn't made it to Lao yet.
Anyway where to begin.
I had my ticket to Lao all booked ages ago, and although I had asked Glen about visa requirements earlier in the month I found myself completely unprepared the night before when I discovered that the visa at the border was not what I had thought. I needed passport photos, $US in cash and a photocopy of my passport, none of which I had. The airport in Bangkok when I finally got there was complete fucking madness, no-one had a clue where to stand, Israeli's were loosing their cool and being ignored by Thai airways staff all over the place (a situation I would normally have enjoyed).
Finally got checked in only to join another queue to pay departure tax and a third queue to get through border control, and these were not small lines, they were queues for Africa, I swear you could have read half of "Harry Potter and the half blood prince" in those queues.
I got through the marathon of check in only to discover the passport photo machine on the other side was out of order, and the post office did not have a photocopy machine. Finally I found a money change (yay) I could at least get the currency, and while I was changing money I spied a photocopy machine in the bank (double yay) but of course it was out of order! So then I sniffed about till I found another bank and begged them for a photocopy which they begrudgingly did, the copy was so dark you could hardly make out if the photo was O.J. Simpson or me, but I lovingly folded it into my passport and thought well that would just have to do. As I headed for my departure gate I spied a photo shop where you can photoshop yourself shaking hands with Chirac or hugging George W. Bush (even as an ironic gesture this makes my skin crawl). and they agreed to do me some passport photos. yay my bacon was saved! I finally got to my gate as my flight was boarding, for the first time in my life I was relieved that my flight had been delayed!
Breakfast was macaroni prawns and fruit salad, mind you by this stage I was starving (and little did I realize it would be the last sniff of food I would have for quite sometime). When we arrived in Vientiane the queue for a visa was huge and I queued once to hand over the paper work and a second time to pay and get my passport back, the visa is not the 30 day one I would have got if I had, had my head together, anyway, it is what it is, so I decide not to go to Vientiane at all but to head straight up to Luang Prabang and went directly to the bus terminal, where there is no queue but the bus is an hour later than I expect it to be, so I wait. With a German called Klaus, I swear that must be John in German, you can never travel anywhere in the world and not come across at least one Klaus.
Finally I get on the bus, you know that expression "hell on wheels" I think I know the bus that guy who coined it was on, it looks benign enough but the roads, I haven't been on roads like that in a loooong time. Apparently once (according to the satanic verses) it was all sealed and the trip took 7 hours. Well I say bullshit Mr Lonely planet, it takes 10-11 hours, every little while you come across a couple of meters where the "sealed road" has been torn up, then sealed rd then another torn up bit, I think it may actually be deliberate, to slow the traffic when it reaches built up areas.
The scenery is fantastic, but what the hell is up with the guy in the seat opposite, the guy who has an AK47 which he is clumsily attempting to conceal under his adidas jacket, is he protection for the bus? I wonder, he has a marvelous collection of tacky tattoos (which I bet no-one hassles him about). As the journey progresses he gets less concientious in his efforts to hide it (and I ain't talking about the tattoos), by the end of the trip he is openly wearing it over his jacket each time he gets off the bus to take a piss. What worries me more is his habit of taking it off and propping it in the corner as he sleeps and the bus lurches around terrifying corners and makes squealing stops in order to avoid accidents, I hope it has a "safety" and it's on. (I also quietly hope he is not involved with some kind of armed insurgence group or other).
In my experience when traveling every time your vehicle comes to a halt it is descended on by a bunch of rabid vendors plying their trade, usually water, soft drinks, beer, chicken on a stick, sticky rice in banana leaves, 100 year old eggs, balut, well you get the picture, in Lao I recommend you pack a lunch or at least buy some fruit, man was I pleased I had bought that bottle of water at the station or I would have died. We finally stopped for dinner and you know I thought about going to the bathroom as I bought another bottle of water, I even heard my Mother's voice telling me I should but you know it. So anyway then it got dark and the road became really windy, the scenery was still really cool, every time we passed through a village at least, lots of houses along the road had families sitting about their kerosene lamps, drinking, watching the world go by, I really needed to go to the bathroom, and now I was getting nauseous, the bus stopped and I leapt of
Not a toilet in sight, in fact the bus stopped often and all the blokes would get off and piss, There were no women on the bus so I was unsure of etiquette, I just couldn't get with the idea of pissing in public and I didn't want to risk wandering off the road at night where I have no clue about the wildlife or the precipitousness of the surrounding area, so, I still really needed to go. On the bus went more higgeldy, and more giggledy, at least the lights were off so I had the privacy of my personal nightmare and did I mention it was cold, up here in the mountains it is cold at night, (well less cold tonight actually), The cold always makes people more inclined to want to go to the bathroom. Now I am getting thirsty, halfway through my second bottle of water I had for obvious reasons stopped consuming water, being in Lao at this time of year is like being inside a giant dust cloud, I feel like pigpen from the old peanuts cartoons, my throat is drying up, I feel nauseous, my head is starting to feel dehydrated and did I mention I am dying to go to the bathroom.
Luang Prabang is a nice village, I think a big part of the appeal of Lao is that it still feels very much like a bunch of villages, it's all very laid back and there are monks everywhere, there seems to be a very large temple to people ratio (32 temples), The temple on the hill in the middle of town has fantastic views, and somebody was playing one of those big drums in the drum house while I was there. I wandered down to see a Buddha in a cave, their was a very freaky hindu fakir sitting in front of it which I mistook for a real person, the Lao people love caves, absolutely obsessed with caves.
There is a number of "eco tour" and "adventure tour" places which proudly advertise how they won't take you to "Pa Ouk caves or any where else tourists go"! I find it hard to believe that anyone actually thinks this is any more authentic than any other kind of package tour. I get tired of the card carrying anti-tourist "travelers" (I guess I am no longer one of them) out to see the last poor little group of hill tribe people who have not yet seen white people and then bemoan the fact that there is no where left undiscovered or untainted by tourism, after all what do they think they are doing by seeking these tribes out?
Having said that I met a guy today who had bought a boat up in Chiang Khong and sold it down here in Luang Prabang, it took four days (paddling) and they didn't kill themselves in the rapids or trash the boat too badly, I have always wanted to get a boat and go down the Mekong, the trouble of course is that the mekong runs mostly along borders of countries and that makes getting permission is sticky, perhaps this is a good alternative trip.
There is a really cool morning food market down by the mekong where locals use a plastic bag tied to a stick as a fly switch that they flick constantly over their wares, let me tell ya it's things like that which make me glad I'm a vegetarian. One of the things I love about the old French colonies, they sure do have good bread, (draw backs of course include that they are full of French tourists (who have no excuse for behaving as if they are God's chosen people). Breakfast though is a joy, no sweet bread or macaroni prawns here.
I went to tat kuang si today, a pretty waterfall 32 km out of town much like a domesticated version of Erawan, it has those blue pools which I think must be the result of all the silica from the limestone. It was a nice way to spend the day, chilling out. They also had a cage of my favourite bears, sunbears, I love the way they always look like they have just had their snout in the honey pot, the bears were a little scruffy but at least they looked well fed.
I got back to Luang prabang in time to watch the sunset and people bathing in the mekong, there I discovered a night market had sprung up down one of the main streets, it was huge, where have all these people come from, tourism is a deceptively large industry in Lao, the happy hour is more a wry grin hour, as drinks are only discounted by 2,000 kip (trust me that ain't much), 10,000 kip to the $US. But the food stall buffet is amazing, all you can eat for $0.50, and it's all vegetarian, (meat is extra). This is so nice after Thailand where trying to get vegetarian food is sometimes impossible, (even when you have just had a discussion about being a vegetarian with them). bought some fresh fruit and I better finish writing this now as I have an early start to the caves tomorrow.
N.J.
Anyway where to begin.
I had my ticket to Lao all booked ages ago, and although I had asked Glen about visa requirements earlier in the month I found myself completely unprepared the night before when I discovered that the visa at the border was not what I had thought. I needed passport photos, $US in cash and a photocopy of my passport, none of which I had. The airport in Bangkok when I finally got there was complete fucking madness, no-one had a clue where to stand, Israeli's were loosing their cool and being ignored by Thai airways staff all over the place (a situation I would normally have enjoyed).
Finally got checked in only to join another queue to pay departure tax and a third queue to get through border control, and these were not small lines, they were queues for Africa, I swear you could have read half of "Harry Potter and the half blood prince" in those queues.
I got through the marathon of check in only to discover the passport photo machine on the other side was out of order, and the post office did not have a photocopy machine. Finally I found a money change (yay) I could at least get the currency, and while I was changing money I spied a photocopy machine in the bank (double yay) but of course it was out of order! So then I sniffed about till I found another bank and begged them for a photocopy which they begrudgingly did, the copy was so dark you could hardly make out if the photo was O.J. Simpson or me, but I lovingly folded it into my passport and thought well that would just have to do. As I headed for my departure gate I spied a photo shop where you can photoshop yourself shaking hands with Chirac or hugging George W. Bush (even as an ironic gesture this makes my skin crawl). and they agreed to do me some passport photos. yay my bacon was saved! I finally got to my gate as my flight was boarding, for the first time in my life I was relieved that my flight had been delayed!
Breakfast was macaroni prawns and fruit salad, mind you by this stage I was starving (and little did I realize it would be the last sniff of food I would have for quite sometime). When we arrived in Vientiane the queue for a visa was huge and I queued once to hand over the paper work and a second time to pay and get my passport back, the visa is not the 30 day one I would have got if I had, had my head together, anyway, it is what it is, so I decide not to go to Vientiane at all but to head straight up to Luang Prabang and went directly to the bus terminal, where there is no queue but the bus is an hour later than I expect it to be, so I wait. With a German called Klaus, I swear that must be John in German, you can never travel anywhere in the world and not come across at least one Klaus.
Finally I get on the bus, you know that expression "hell on wheels" I think I know the bus that guy who coined it was on, it looks benign enough but the roads, I haven't been on roads like that in a loooong time. Apparently once (according to the satanic verses) it was all sealed and the trip took 7 hours. Well I say bullshit Mr Lonely planet, it takes 10-11 hours, every little while you come across a couple of meters where the "sealed road" has been torn up, then sealed rd then another torn up bit, I think it may actually be deliberate, to slow the traffic when it reaches built up areas.
The scenery is fantastic, but what the hell is up with the guy in the seat opposite, the guy who has an AK47 which he is clumsily attempting to conceal under his adidas jacket, is he protection for the bus? I wonder, he has a marvelous collection of tacky tattoos (which I bet no-one hassles him about). As the journey progresses he gets less concientious in his efforts to hide it (and I ain't talking about the tattoos), by the end of the trip he is openly wearing it over his jacket each time he gets off the bus to take a piss. What worries me more is his habit of taking it off and propping it in the corner as he sleeps and the bus lurches around terrifying corners and makes squealing stops in order to avoid accidents, I hope it has a "safety" and it's on. (I also quietly hope he is not involved with some kind of armed insurgence group or other).
In my experience when traveling every time your vehicle comes to a halt it is descended on by a bunch of rabid vendors plying their trade, usually water, soft drinks, beer, chicken on a stick, sticky rice in banana leaves, 100 year old eggs, balut, well you get the picture, in Lao I recommend you pack a lunch or at least buy some fruit, man was I pleased I had bought that bottle of water at the station or I would have died. We finally stopped for dinner and you know I thought about going to the bathroom as I bought another bottle of water, I even heard my Mother's voice telling me I should but you know it. So anyway then it got dark and the road became really windy, the scenery was still really cool, every time we passed through a village at least, lots of houses along the road had families sitting about their kerosene lamps, drinking, watching the world go by, I really needed to go to the bathroom, and now I was getting nauseous, the bus stopped and I leapt of
Not a toilet in sight, in fact the bus stopped often and all the blokes would get off and piss, There were no women on the bus so I was unsure of etiquette, I just couldn't get with the idea of pissing in public and I didn't want to risk wandering off the road at night where I have no clue about the wildlife or the precipitousness of the surrounding area, so, I still really needed to go. On the bus went more higgeldy, and more giggledy, at least the lights were off so I had the privacy of my personal nightmare and did I mention it was cold, up here in the mountains it is cold at night, (well less cold tonight actually), The cold always makes people more inclined to want to go to the bathroom. Now I am getting thirsty, halfway through my second bottle of water I had for obvious reasons stopped consuming water, being in Lao at this time of year is like being inside a giant dust cloud, I feel like pigpen from the old peanuts cartoons, my throat is drying up, I feel nauseous, my head is starting to feel dehydrated and did I mention I am dying to go to the bathroom.
Luang Prabang is a nice village, I think a big part of the appeal of Lao is that it still feels very much like a bunch of villages, it's all very laid back and there are monks everywhere, there seems to be a very large temple to people ratio (32 temples), The temple on the hill in the middle of town has fantastic views, and somebody was playing one of those big drums in the drum house while I was there. I wandered down to see a Buddha in a cave, their was a very freaky hindu fakir sitting in front of it which I mistook for a real person, the Lao people love caves, absolutely obsessed with caves.
There is a number of "eco tour" and "adventure tour" places which proudly advertise how they won't take you to "Pa Ouk caves or any where else tourists go"! I find it hard to believe that anyone actually thinks this is any more authentic than any other kind of package tour. I get tired of the card carrying anti-tourist "travelers" (I guess I am no longer one of them) out to see the last poor little group of hill tribe people who have not yet seen white people and then bemoan the fact that there is no where left undiscovered or untainted by tourism, after all what do they think they are doing by seeking these tribes out?
Having said that I met a guy today who had bought a boat up in Chiang Khong and sold it down here in Luang Prabang, it took four days (paddling) and they didn't kill themselves in the rapids or trash the boat too badly, I have always wanted to get a boat and go down the Mekong, the trouble of course is that the mekong runs mostly along borders of countries and that makes getting permission is sticky, perhaps this is a good alternative trip.
There is a really cool morning food market down by the mekong where locals use a plastic bag tied to a stick as a fly switch that they flick constantly over their wares, let me tell ya it's things like that which make me glad I'm a vegetarian. One of the things I love about the old French colonies, they sure do have good bread, (draw backs of course include that they are full of French tourists (who have no excuse for behaving as if they are God's chosen people). Breakfast though is a joy, no sweet bread or macaroni prawns here.
I went to tat kuang si today, a pretty waterfall 32 km out of town much like a domesticated version of Erawan, it has those blue pools which I think must be the result of all the silica from the limestone. It was a nice way to spend the day, chilling out. They also had a cage of my favourite bears, sunbears, I love the way they always look like they have just had their snout in the honey pot, the bears were a little scruffy but at least they looked well fed.
I got back to Luang prabang in time to watch the sunset and people bathing in the mekong, there I discovered a night market had sprung up down one of the main streets, it was huge, where have all these people come from, tourism is a deceptively large industry in Lao, the happy hour is more a wry grin hour, as drinks are only discounted by 2,000 kip (trust me that ain't much), 10,000 kip to the $US. But the food stall buffet is amazing, all you can eat for $0.50, and it's all vegetarian, (meat is extra). This is so nice after Thailand where trying to get vegetarian food is sometimes impossible, (even when you have just had a discussion about being a vegetarian with them). bought some fresh fruit and I better finish writing this now as I have an early start to the caves tomorrow.
N.J.
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